Neighbor Bryan Whitaker said he saw flames and smoke and heard his neighbor calling for help, and his instincts kicked in.

"All I know, he was yelling, he tried to go back in, we said, 'No, you need to get out,' and we got his mom out. She was doubting what we were doing," Whitaker said.

"He's dialing 911 and I'm grabbing the fire extinguisher. By the time we got down to the basement doors we had smoke and flames coming out. It wasn't going to have any effect I just went door to door getting people out. His mom lives next to him. We got the German shepherd out, all the other neighbors, as we went down," Whitaker said.

More than three dozen firefighters battled the fire, and crews said that getting enough water to the fire was an issue.

"We only have one source of water back here. We have decent water but kind of limited on the water we needed for our fire attack," Dietz said.

No one was injured in the fire because of the smart thinking of the neighbors.

"It's just a matter, if you can't put the fire out, just get everybody out, make sure nobody is going to get hurt," Whitaker said.

Firefighters have not said how the fire started but that it began in the basement of one of the units.